The computer modelling of environments is traditionally based on artificial constructs from the imagination of the environment creator. Being artificial, they require significant effort investing in their creation, usually in the form of artistic talent and time from the development team.
Due to the large amounts of data that require processing in order to create such an environment, the results tend to depend on the resources and processing power available to the end user group and the limitations of the supporting databus or network. This limitation will affect either the extent or quality of the model environment or the cost of the hardware required to process the environment.
For example, in the case of processing power limitation, the rendering of the environment may suffer during particularly processor intensive scenes. This often results in frame rate slow down, a particularly unwanted side-effect during, for example, a game where users are interacting with each other requiring accurate collision detection for a satisfactory user experience. Slow down also reinforces the perception that the environment is artificial. The problem occurs both at the level of creation of the environment as a whole and at the level of creation of individual environment components such as buildings.